As many of you recall, Camp celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2014. We launched the magazine in June 2004 at the Gay Pride festival.
We had enough to do just getting the print edition started that year, so our website wasn’t created until about six months later. The first iteration of the site was terrible, and we had trouble getting improvements made. So we found a new website designer and created a new site that we’ve used for the last eight or more years.
Now I’m pleased to announce that we’re launching a new website in February. It should be much more readable and allow for more content. It will also enable us to include more photos with each story, more resource pages, an expanded business directory, engagement and wedding announcements, and much more. We’ll be signing readers up for an online newsletter as well.
The new website will also feature digital editions of the print issues of Camp. Each month’s digital edition will look identical to the print issue, with the same stories and ads. You will be able to use this format to read Camp from your tablet or smartphone and share each issue with friends. This way, people who haven’t found a print edition yet will be able to read the same version online.
I want to thank the technical and creative geniuses of Sarah Withee and Terry Newell for this new design and these functional improvements. Part of the delay in implementing the new website was that it was built in a program that would make it difficult to retain the eight years of stories preserved on the current website. That was unacceptable, so the challenge was to convert the old website archive of stories to the new format. Sarah was able to achieve that goal. And Terry used his marketing genius in the design, as he has done for AIDS Walk and other groups in the city.
Look for the new website in February. Also, hit the “Like” button for “Camp Kansas City” on Facebook so we can notify you about when the new site will be up and running. As with any new website, we expect adjustments to be needed after it’s up. You can help us improve the new site by giving us feedback. Send an email to jlong@campkc.com to share your thoughts with us. "
